Ceropegia is a genus of plants within the family Apocynaceae.
Carl Linnaeus, who first described this genus in volume 1 of his Species
plantarum, which appeared in 1753, thought that the flowers looked like
a fountain of wax. From this the scientific name was derived: ‘keros’
meaning wax and ‘pege’ meaning fountain (Pooley, 1998). They
have many common names including lantern flower, parasol flower, parachute
flower, bushman’s pipe, string of hearts, snake creeper, wine-glass
vine, rosary vine, necklace vine and condom flower.

Ceropegia contains a diverse group of 160 named species distributed over
a wide range including the Canary Islands, Africa, Madagascar, Arabia,
India, Ceylon, China, Indonesia, Phillipines, New Guinea and Australia
(Queensland).